The Laksa Craze

Taken from Anthony Bourdain's Twitter

Yesssssss.... #laksa #Kuching                      --Bourdain, 2015 

Right, Bourdain came to Kuching few days ago and had laksa at Choon Hui (yes, that famous and slightly overrated laksa place next to Grand Continental Hotel).  He twitted this photo and it immediately went viral, at least among my social media circle. Not sure if it's because our city day is approaching, I kept seeing uplifting news about Kuching these two weeks. *homesick* Anyway, back to the topic, I was really hyped to see that caption, not to mention how excited my dad got when I showed him this. As much as a authentic food enthusiast my father is, he'd really go by all means to educate people that it is laksa KUCHING, NOT laksa SARAWAK. I bet he must be a little sad that even a foreigner can acknowledge this but why is our people keep advertising it as laksa SARAWAK?

Okay, before this, I've always wondered why is my dad so particular with the name. See, it is always advertised as laksa Sarawak to differentiate itself from other laksas in Malaysia. Our own Sarawak Tourism Board also named it laksa Sarawak, everyone calls it laksa Sarawak. Fine, except the locals, we simply call it laksa. So, I think what Bourdain really meant was that he's having laksa in Kuching, hence #laksa #Kuching. Then again, really pissed me off is when certain facebook comments correcting him that it is laska SARAWAK not KUCHING. Hey, let's get the fact straight, this version of laksa originated from KUCHING, so what's the wrong of calling it laksa KUCHING? I think I finally got why my dad is so particular with the nomenclature. Try going to other parts of Sarawak and order a bowl of laksa, some would even come with condiments like taupok and fishballs or fish cake. That's not the authentic KUCHING laksa, so go ahead and call it laksa SARAWAK. Authentic Laksa Kuching should comprise of bean sprout, chicken, omelette, prawns, Chinese celery/ coriander, belacan (not sambal chilli), and Calamansi lime.

I know some would argue that it still come from the state of Sarawak, so are laksa Penang from  the state of Penang, and laksa Johor from the state of Johor. Never would one say laksa Georgetown or Laksa JB right? WRONG! Sarawak is a country, not a state. If you understand what I mean #S4S What if I call Penang laksa Malaya Laksa? Then you'll start wondering what laksa is it. Is it Nyonya laksa, or assam laksa, or curry laksa? See, when things are generalised they lose their identity. That is why it is called Katong laksa not Singapore laksa. My point here is, I don't find the wrong in calling Kuching laksa Sarawak laksa, 'cause Kuching is still part of Sarawak. But I think by doing so, our laksa will really lose our identity. 

This is already happening that it worries me. I have came across few laksa stalls in Kuching started adding 'non-authentic' condiments like tau pok and fish cake while leaving out the omelette.

first laksa I had during my last trip back to Kuching.. see the taupok and no omelette *smh* 

Discussion regarding the pic: grumpy cats disapprove laksa with taupok

See, that's the consequence of not emphasising regional characteristics. Sooner or later we got hybrid of assam laksa and our laksa. That, to me, is not some cultural assimilation shit, that's bulls***. Cultural assimilation doesn't come this way, it should be marrying the good of two or more culture and give birth to a child which inherit the best of the best. Simply by mixing two elements is just disrespectful to all cultures involved. I know some who encourage this kind of diversity, but really, I hope our roots can be retained. Like the discussion above, I can see many fellow Kuchingites wants an authentic bowl of laksa, while some 'outsiders' or younger generations have already lose track of what is the real laksa. If this is what you want to achieve, go ahead and call laksa Kuching, laksa Sarawak. Who am I to correct this. But I hope I am not one to witness the downfall of our 'heritage'. 

Don't mess with my laksa and kolo mee! #Kuchingiteforlife

Peace, 

Dong

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새우젓 vs cincalok: it's a small world after all

Many a time we think we are different from others, but after taking a closer look, we are not as special as we think we are. We're all human after all. 

So one of my assignment was on cincaluk. And as I was searching for information online, I got distracted by this video. Look at the condiment at 1:24. Looks familiar? It does, for me. Especially when it's all I see these past two days.  Cincalok!!! But wait a second, 새 우 젓  (saewoo jeot)? hmm, Korean?! I was really surprised.

It's not news to me that South east Asian region shared similar dishes/condiments etc, or the East Asian countries claiming origin of certain food. Often time you heard of Malaysian and Indonesian fighting over rendang, satay. And then other times you get confused with kimbap and maki sushi. But similarity between Malaysian food and Korean food, it just never came across my mind.

That being said, I was soon drifted away, from researching cincalok to researching saewoo jeot. *Screw assignment. 

Top: saewoo jeot; bottom: cincalok. See? It looks really similar right?

After some readings on wikipedia, 새우젓 (saewoo jeot), is a kind of salted and fermented shrimps (새우=shrimps, 젓= salted fermented food ). It is usually used as an ingredient for kimchi. The shrimps that is used for the making of saewoo jeot is literally called 젓새우 (jeot saewoo, shrimps for jeot), while the shrimps used in cincalok is of Acetes sp., or commonly known as udang geragau in Malay. Uncle Wiki told me that Acetes sp. belongs to the family of Sergestidae, which is a branch of superfamily Sergestoidea, of which jeot saewoo belongs to. No wonder they look alike. Ah biology, it's been a while. ><

But if you take a closer look into the two pictures above, you can see that the colour is slightly different, as well as the shape of the shrimps. That's because of the way they are fermented. 

Source: Huda, N. (2012). Malaysian Fermented Fish Product. In Y. Hui, Handbook of animal-based fermented food and beverage technology (pp. 713). Florida: CRC Press.

So, cincalok is fermented with 20% of salt and 6% of rice for 20-30 days, while saewoo jeot is fermented with 15-35% of salt to various degree according to the season and time of the year. (The fermented shrimps are also called differently depending on the month it is fermented.) Obviously, cincalok with added rice had a higher rate of fermentation since it has more 'fuel' (carbohydrates) for anaerobic respiration. If you notice, red colouring is also added to cincalok, which explains the more reddish and less purplish tone. 

After understanding how it's made, I realised the difference between these two condiments are just in the rice. But how about it's application? How big a difference does the rice bring to the food? While we all know cincalok is salty, umami, and has a strong fermented rotten-like taste, saewoo jeot according to the video seems to be only salty. Cincalok are usually made into sambal cincalok, with chilli, lime, and shallot, or fried with egg or made into fried rice. Saewoo jeot, on the other hand, is known to be a condiment in stews or stir-fried with zucchini other than a condiment in kimchi. 

Stir-fried zucchini with saewoo jeot ( 애호박채 새우젓 볶음)

Saewoo jeot tofu stew (새우젓 두부찌개)

And then I stumbled on this forum, where this netizen asked if there are other ways to include saewoo jeot into dishes. This one reply suggested to make into a condiment by seasoning it with chilli powder, pepper, garlic, sesame seeds, chilli slices, spring onion  and lime/lemon juice. Hmm, it does sound like sambal cincalok, no? Then, there's also steam egg, also similar to our cincalok fried egg/steam egg. 

saewoo jeot steam egg (새우젓 달걀찜)

cincalok omelette

But what caught my attention was accompanying it with three layer pork/pork trotter! Be it stir-fried or just plain! Ah, how could I miss such a classic combination! The last time I eat this was years ago, now I feel like buying a slab of three layer pork to go with cincalok for tomorrow's dinner. =d 

such a simple dish, but the tastiness is really off the chart!!!

The condiment on the top right corner is the Korean version of  'sambal cincalok'.

Ready-to-eat sambal cincalok I got from Cold Storage for my research. 

It seemed like these two condiments can be used interchangeably, as this site suggested. It made me curious about the taste of saewoo jeot. Any idea how can get hold of these? I want to try. 

Aish, another hour spent on non-assignment-related stuff means an hour lost on assignment. I'd better sign off now before I lose more time. >.<

For the new knowledge I gained today, peace!

Dong

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RL 150413 & 14: Gold Standard II and Finalising Gold Standard

What a week! Entering week 4 means we're only left three quarters of the semester, and I felt that I just warmed up!

Lesson 8: Whatever does not kill me, makes me stronger

Bad Monday, our group was assigned to collect ingredients. So we're the earliest to reach while the rest arrived later when we're off to collect ingredients. The moment when we re-enter the R&D kitchen, everyone was looking gloomy. I was totally dumbfounded when we're suddenly "blamed" for not 'taking care' of the R&D kitchen. That instance, I really do feel the need to vent all my dissatisfaction, but I suppressed the anger. Now that a week has almost passed, I had done enough reflection to admit that we were at the wrong but still, I don't think we should be treated this way.

Okay, so the incident actually started two weeks ago when Eugene (yes, he's the class rep for FYP) received pictures showing how unorganised the R&D kitchen was, the ingredients were said to not labelled properly and were stored anyhow, and the pots and pans were scattered all over the place. Later on Monday I found out those ingredients have been confiscated. To be frank, I was really unhappy because we were the first group to transfer our ingredients nicely into containers and labelled and kept under our cabinet, more so, I was the one who took the initiative to sort out onions and garlic from the rotten ones and transferred them into clean plastic bags. It just felt like all the work I've done have been put into waste. All the while, we've been carefully following rules, but somehow, the rules were never clearly instructed, how are we supposed to know what to do? Case in point, the flour that is still in the original package. I agree it's our fault not labelling it, but no one has ever told us to transfer it into a new container, even so, there's also no enough containers to keep that much flour. In the end, flour was confiscated. I could ramble on and on but no point crying over spilt milk now. I just sincerely hope for a black and white from the management, clearly stating the SOP of everything in the kitchen, from stock management to equipment usage to code of ethics, etc. Better still conduct a briefing on the do's and don'ts in the kitchen like what they are doing with the science labs. This is to protect both parties, keep us students informed and so we could not argue when the management is performing their authority. 

Fine, enough of complaints. Let's move on to what we did on Monday. We had a sensory test on our patty, bun and sauce to figure out which version had the best sensory acceptance so we could move on assembling and do another sensory test on Tuesday. 

Carrot buns

We did three versions of carrot buns: Bc45 with 45% carrot; Bc70 with 70% carrot; and Bc90 with 90% carrot. As the amount of carrots increased, the texture of the dough became lumpier and thus the buns became softer. Result of sensory test suggested that Bc90 was the spongiest of all, but some found it too soft and could hardly hold its shape. Bc70 was the best among the three buns, as it held its shape while the texture was balanced between sponginess and chewiness. On an extra note was that the buns, despite having high content of carrot, did not taste carrot at all. It was a very welcoming result for us we do not need to find other means to mask the carrot taste. 

Left to right: Bc45; Bc70, Bc90

Patty  no, pictures.. oops

Patty was a tricky one. We did pureed patty, Pp, two kinds of jellied patties, Pj6.5 and Pj13 (with double gelatine), and a control. As we did not managed the time well, the patties were ready right before the sensory test. We didn't have time to properly cool it down, so by the time we cut, it left a hollow space in the patty as some of the filling leaked. As a result, the most accepted patty was Pp, whereby the beetroot and pumpkin puree provided moisture and flavour to the patty, at the same time, gave a variety in texture. We expected Pj13 to have a better acceptance than Pj6.5 but it turned out to be the worst as it was too watery and nothing was left in the patty. 

Sauce

As what we planned previous week, we reduced butter in our sauce (Se100) and compared with the one we got previous week (Se150). Turned out that Se100 is more acceptable as it is less buttery and more balanced. 

Monday ended up to be an exhausting day. We had to immediately analyse the sensory test result so that we could plan for the next day. As we prepared too many samples for the sensory test, it could be a burden for our sensory panels to taste so many different food. Hence, after finalising the sensory results, we decided to pick the best and compare with a control set for the sensory test on Tuesday. 

Top: Control (Sample B) - Bo, Po, So; bottom: Gold standard (Sample A)- Bc70, Pp, Se100 

The preparation on Tuesday went on pretty smoothly as we had already gone through once on Monday. We prepared everything on time, and this time, there were only two samples so the sensory test was done pretty quickly too. 

Gold standard vs control: size is almost similar

Gold standard vs control: bun was thinner in gold standard but patty was thicker.

The results came out as expected, most of the people preferred the gold standard with carrot bun and pureed vegetables filled patty, as it was more moist and flavourful. However, one thing that attracted our attention was that a few of them mentioned the patty looks scary and bloody. Kenley actually named it 'bloody red burger' LOL! what a spot on representation of BRB.. 

More people preferred (18/22) sample A (gold standard)

Sample A (gold standard) had better sensory quality than sample B (control), however it is quite comparable.

The overall comment on our second sensory test was much more welcoming than that on the first day, mainly because the flavours from the sauce, patty, and bun complemented each other and it was too monotonous when consumed separately. However, the patties were still a bit dry, so we are going to improve that on coming Monday. Surprisingly, no one commented on the vibrant colours on the buns and patty except it looked bloody. We treated it as a positive feedback as the colours were meant to attract children's attention. To solve the 'bloody' problem, we were planning to make the filling so solid so it wouldn't smear as much when it is cut. 

Tuesday was a much better day, and we managed to go back early. Yay! What I learnt was practice really does make perfect, and planning helps to keep us on track. Yeah, we're progressing steadily on track so hopefully we could continue doing so.

Looking forward to the next session!

Dong

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RL 150406 & 150407: Introduction to Food Product Development 2 & Gold Standard I

Wadup peeps! It's my final semester! but I dunwanna graduate *whines This semester started a bit late because of the RCA conference. We got back on a Tuesday in week 2, and went right back into campus the next day. Since FPD 2 falls on a Tuesday this semester, we only started class in week 3. That's why we are all in rocket mode now. We've got quite some progress to catch up!

Quick recap: our final year project is a School Health Meal Programme whereby we need to develop healthy kids meal through the usage of innovative and functional ingredients. During the last stage in FPD 1, we've came out with 2 beta concepts: Beetroot and Pumpkin burger, and spiral spring roll. We decided to go with Beetroot and pumpkin burger as the idea was more developed.

Lesson 7: Opportunity is for those who are prepared

Yes? No? Maybe? Argh, I don't think I'm ready yet! Not even a second for us to take a deep breath, we're expected to carry out our first trial of gold standard on our first official class. Great We had an introductory class on Monday whereby Dr. Chong briefed us of the structure of the module. 

So this semester, we will be going through 4 phases before we finally launch our product. The first three weeks are to develop a gold standard (GS), followed by 4 weeks of commercial prototype (CP) studies, before moving on to product packaging and marketing study. Along the development, physiochemical properties and storage studies will be carried out. It does look like we had little to do, but there's tonnes of hidden circumstances we have to take into account. So yeah, I better brace myself as it will be my last and toughest semester to go through. 

On Tuesday, we went straight into our first GS trial. Oh, and before I forget, each of us in the team plays a different role to keep our 'company' running. Ernie is the director, responsible for HR management and related stuff. We all agreed for Kenley to be the HACCP manager because he needs some responsibility to correct his messiness. =X I am the product manager whereby I need to plan for the production of both GS and CP, as well as monitoring the quality of our product. That left us with the marketing manager, which is also assigned to Kenley, cause we all know how 'outspoken' he could be. 

Anyway, back to the production on Tuesday, we had tonnes of things to decide. We had three components, the bun, the patty, and the sauce. For bun, we tried the one and only carrot bun (Bc) recipe found on the internet and compared with one without carrots (Bo) as control. Meanwhile, we made 4 versions of patty as we played around with the texture of the patty filling. We had an empty one as control (Po), one with chunk vegetables (Pc), one with pureed vegetables (Pp) and one in jelly (Pj) form. Finally, we also tried two different method to make the spicy honey lemon sauce, one by using thickening agent (corn starch) as the control (So), and the other by emulsification using butter (Se). 

Our production plan

Carrot bun

The carrot bun recipe we found turned out to be too lumpy for a bun, so we added more flour to it. To double check the new formulation works, we made another trial, thus leaving us with three batches of buns.

Left to right: Bo, Bc50 trial 1, Bc50 trial 2

Sensory result

• Bo: Dense and chewy because of lesser moisture. Irregular shape because did not rest well after reshaping. 
• Bc50 (1st): Texture was quite compact but soft. Better shape because the dough rested well. Flour was added at the end when the dough was formed to adjust the consistency, hence another trial was conducted to check the texture when all flour were added at the same time.
• Bc50 (2nd): Texture was fluffier than the 1st Bc50 because a gluten network was formed more properly. Tasted a bit bland.

Next trial

• To push the carrot content to the limit and determine the possible maximum level of carrot used while maintaining the palatability. 
• To add some fried shallot to provide more aroma. 

Patty

Top to bottom: Pc, Pp, Pj.

Sensory result:

• Po: Patty was a bit dry. Overwhelming taste of maggie seasoning, oregano and blackpepper.
• Pc: Vegetables balanced the taste by a small degree. Beetroot chunk needed too much effort to chew. 
• Pp: Consistent and easy to form patty. Layer was too thin, could not taste the vegetables. Red colour in the middle looked like uncooked meat.  
• Pj: Flows out while hot. Best sensory attribute among all variations. Red colour in the middle looked like uncooked meat. 

Next trial

• To improve on the taste of meat. 
• To increase the thickness of vegetable filling.
• To increase amount of gelatin for Pj and compare the sensory profile with the current Pj. 

Spicy Honey Lemon Sauce

Sensory result:

• So: Cayene was too overpowering
• Se: Reduced cayenne and added butter. Tasted more balanced and creamy but slightly too buttery. 

Next trial

To reduce amount of butter for Se by 33% and check on the flavour

Appearance of the assembled burger

Cross section of burgers. Top to bottom: Pc, Pp, Pj.

Conclusion

The trials took longer time than expected as we over estimated our capability. However, the outcome showed that we were on the right track as the product came out to be quite appealing. Still a lot of work to be done but so far I'm enjoying the process!.

Looking forward to the coming trial. 

Peace out, 

Dong

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No la... It's no biggie, I've made it to NOLA!!-- 20150322-20150331: Trip to New Orleans, Louisiana for RCA Annual Conference and Culinology Competition

Excuse me for the lame pun, I just had to. Sorry~

x.

After weeks of sleepless night and exasperation tasting the same shrimps and biscuit over and over again, finally I was there, Hall D of Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, carrying out my last routine before I officially bade farewell to this pandemonium. The food was served, the judges tasted the food and gave their feedback, not really welcoming as what I understood.

"It's over," I thought to myself.

"No more self doubt, you've done your best, no regrets." I told myself.

I thought it was a relief, but I was in fact desensitising myself to all competition related stuff to a point that I couldn't feel anything even at the moment when we knew we were one of the top 3. or maybe I was just flabbergasted, cause I sincerely thought the other team would make it instead of us. But it's a fact, we got 1st runner up, once again beaten by Johnson and Wales (ish!). But what am I to complain? 2nd out of the 17 teams worldwide that took part in this competition, that's a helluva achievement! You go girl!

x.

And that was two weeks ago, now as I'm back to school and my FYP, everything that happened back there was just too surreal. It literally (I mean it!) felt like a dream. Did it happen? Did it not happen? I think it did, at least I have photos (though not many) as my alibi. xP

D -3

Touched down New Orleans after a long haul flight! Our flight was delayed for an hour, so it was 7 something when we arrived. Guess what! We went to the hotel on a limousine! What an experience!

1 stop before New Orleans, it's snowing in Chicago! FIRST SNOW IN MY LIFE

Squeezing our best smiles on our tired faces..

First dinner. Tried fried alligator, tasted like chicken. LOL #Asianatwork

D -2

Walking towards the future of food-- 2015 RCA Annual Conference happening in NOLA!

So, this was taken when we went for registration on the second day, after we went through a long morning doing "ingredient hunt". Right, we woke up at 5 and went out around 6 am to a nearby grocery, Rouses Market (which turned out to be my favourite 'shopping' place), to source for ingredient. They had most ingredients we needed, except for a few, so we decided to walk another 3km to Walmart to get our stuff.

Louisiana owned grocery-- Rouses Market

Only had we known that Walmart was not any better than Rouses Market! It did have a wider selection of goods, but the quality of food did not seem as good as Rouses. But at least we had a good walk there bought lots of snacks and souvenirs. 

Scenery along the way from Rouses to Walmart featuring Helen

And we took a bus back to the hotel after the grocery shopping. 

That night we had dinner at Mulate's, which is just outside of the convention centre. The seafood platter was not bad, but we were all thrilled by the Cajun smoked oyster (sorry, no pictures). It was garlic-y and the oyster was so sweet I couldn't even... 

Too bad we came a bit too early, the band was only there when we were about to leave. =(

Top: Mulate's Seafood platter- good but not breathtaking =X;

Bottom: Jambalaya- we had this almost everyday and this was the best I've tried.

After dinner, it was time for a retail therapy (as if the morning grocery is not enough). We went to Riverwalk which is just next to the convention centre, Guess what? Since it's Easter, the shops were all having great sales, and you see everyone started grabbing Coach like none other's business, but what would you expect? It's 50% off store-wide after all, cheaper than Malaysia's price by a few times even after conversion.

A great place to chill, especially in the evening. Enjoy the sunset while overlooking the Mississippi River. 

D -1

The conference officially started. Spent the morning attending workshop and the afternoon setting up our speed rack. We met our opponents and the judges for the first time. My adrenaline level was reaching its maximum, guess that's why I was so unaware of what happened during the set up. LOL! All I could remember was suddenly the atmosphere tense up and made me unconfortable. I only found out later coming back here, that Kenley and Vinson almost got into a fight. Ah,  the stress and tension! I think that's basically my condition for most of this trip, not caring whatever was happening around me cause all I wanted was a good sleep. So yeah, couldn't handle any more activities that evening, we skipped the reception dinner and headed straight back to the hotel that night hoping for a good night sleep. 

D 0

Competition day! I woke up at 3.30am as we needed to gather at the lobby at 5am and depart to the convention centre. Adrenaline continue to build up. I wasn't in my state of mind anymore, more than the day before I guess. Couldn't even recall what I was doing then. All I remembered was I wanted the whole competition to be over. Anyway, we were the earliest bunch to reach the convention centre, which were later joined by the Canadian team. After rounds of photo shooting, we finally settled ourselves for the competition. Canadian team went first and close after them was team Titan. We were supposed to start right after that, but it was somehow delayed so we lost some mise en place time. Thanks to our practices back home, we didn't need 15 minutes to get prepared. So the competition officially started once we got ready.

Quick 'breakfast', needed some sugar rush to get me through the day.

Team ACE ready to rock the competition!

My dad took a screencap of me during the live stream of the competition. >.<

We all performed our roles like what we have been trained to. A little part of me had a feeling that something would go wrong, cause Murphy's Law always have this thing on me. And there, it was proven once again, when I couldn't properly switch on the weighing scale. Fortunately we brought an extra weighing scale, though not as accurate. Phew. Then just as I thought everything was going too smoothly, I found my biscuit dough to be super lumpy. It delayed my time in cutting it and I became frustrated when my team mates kept checking on me cause I was already behind the time.

"Dong, expression management! You look like you're gonna eat a person up!" Wilbert was kind enough to remind me even he was also experiencing problems with the shrimps. 

Yeap, as well as I know myself when I was too focus and engrossed in doing my job, I hissed back impatiently, "SHHH! Don't tell me what to do, I need to focus right now! I know what to do!" Sorry, Wilbert... X目 Alas! I finally managed to finish cutting though some of the biscuits were out of shape. But one thing I was really grateful was the oven. Thank goodness it was a convection oven, it saved me the time I'd lost cutting the biscuits. Great!

We're almost done with the competition, all we left was plating up and waiting for the commercial product to heat up. Yet, another delay announcement. The first team used up too much time for reheating thus affecting our schedule. What a day! As we thought we had more time, the judges informed us that we have to plate the commercial product individually instead of serving in one big portion. This time, I was really really grateful that we foresaw all these situations and prepared our plan B's ahead! Yet another near miss, phew! So yeah, we finally managed to serve our food on time, you have no idea how relieved I felt! Like the feeling you get after a short distant sprint, I just felt like I'm collapsing after giving all out.

Our product--
Left: Gold standard; middle: commercialised product (frozen ones in the box); bottom right: plated commercialised product.

Oh, the happy faces.. Competition's over! Team ACE ftw!! Photo courtesy of Wilbert.

Yet, as much as I wanted sleep, there's so much more for us to explore. We visited the Culinology Expo in the afternoon, and were being hollered back to the hotel as others were just too exhausted. While others were deep in their dreamland,  four of us went out to the student's reception thinking it's a party. But tadaa, it ended up to be a Culinology student meeting. Err, it was super awkward as we were already late and there were only less than 10 in the room. *awkward crow flies by*

Anyway, we did manage to find out where the real party was and made it there with Rick joining us on the way. Once again, the atmosphere was still, as we knew nobody there. We chatted with Shakira and her SMSU team for a while thinking of moving somewhere else to get dinner. But then, we were later caught up by the Canadian team, and there we were stuck in the party for the whole night. The rest who were sleeping in the hotel earlier on also joined us. I admit I'm not a social animal to the bone. I did manage a few small talks here and there but I found myself eating and drinking most of the time. Gah,,, I tried my best, maybe this is just not my thing....

At the Tobasco party.. Photo courtesy of Nicholas

D +1

New day after the competition, I slept in for a bit, finally I was not the earliest to wake up. LOL! Helen woke me up in fact. We attended the conference in the morning, had crawfish which was not up to my liking for lunch, and went to Riverwalk again before attending the Award Ceremony at night. 

Somehow thinks I left my luck back in Malaysia.. The others who went for the other workshop get to 'taste' alcohol in the morning, what I got was two leaves of  radicchio lettuce, one gulp of orange juice, one sachet of sugar and three jelly beans. *pouts

Crawfish and vegetables for lunch. It was extremely salty and tasted nothing else. 

Oh, before I forgot! I tasted beignet from the famous Cafe du Monde. It was so so, imagine a fluffier slightly undercooked "you tiao" being generously sprinkled with icing sugar. Yup! that's it, not worth the hype at all. 

See, I ain't bluffing.. It does look like it, no? Photo credit: Cindy Lo's pixnet 

5.30pm, we head to the ceremony hall as the Awards ceremony would be held in half hour. 6.00pm, we entered the hall and sat at the last rows. Before the ceremony started, a guy from SMSU (forgotten his name) came to us, "Good look, good look" he repeated a several times. "Thank you," we replied, but I was weirded out as to why did he wish us 'good look', did he meant we were good looking? but why? When I found out later that he meant "good luck" Argh!!! that was so embarrassing! Helen and I guessed he must be a Brit, and Shakira confirmed that he's Irish. Lol. 

Anyway, I wasn't paying much attention during the ceremony, since I was not prepared to get on the stage. Then the top 3 of the student competition were asked to forward to the stage. 

"Northern Exposure, Johnson & Wales and ACE" 

"ACE" ACE!!!!! It echoed in my ears, and I was stunned for a second. This can't be real, I still couldn't believe when I was standing in front of the hall. We were announced as the 2nd runner up. We went up the stage, cheque received, photos taken. Went down the stage, people started to congratulate us. Honestly, I really didn't know how to respond to all these wishes, I didn't felt the happiness I thought I would feel but I feel sorry for the other two teams instead. Issh! Dong, why can't you be tougher...

After that, we had a cocktail reception. We thank the judges, had our share of food and drinks and left the place for Bourbon street. 

Group photo with the papa of Taylor's Culinology. He was the winner for the professional team! photo courtesy of Nicholas

It's 2500 dollars!!!!

A view of not-so-wild-part of Bourbon street. Too many people, me no likey. 

D +2

Last day in New Orleans! Had a not so enjoyable morning at TJ Maxx, but a super satisfying dinner. 

Loving the sun! Finally I smell spring.. Photo courtesy of Wilbert. 

So we splitted into two groups that morning, one went to TJ Maxx for shopping and the other group went to French Quarter. I really didn't know why I chose not to go to the French Quarter, because that is what I would opt for any other day. Anyway, choice was made and we made our move there. The weather was super good that day, sunny day, blue sky, no clouds, and green is everywhere. 

No filter, no edit. This is spring.

Mexican food for lunch, everything just looks the same even though the names are different.

I'm actually iffy about having red bean paste as a salty condiment, but it was actually not bad!

Meanwhile, the other group was having fun at the French Quarter tasting oysters, enjoying jazz and eating the world's 2nd hottest chilli. Hmmph!!! Regret to the max!!

Video credit to Nicholas. 

But I did get a chance to roam about the French Quarters in the evening, and the sunset makes everything so beautiful. 

Didn't get a chance to ride on one.. =/

Before a wedding reception..

Dinner! Best dinner I had in New Orleans goes to.. *drum rolls*

Mother's Restaurant!! They boasted to have the best baked ham in the world!

which as indeed very good! This is a po boy with their ham and it tasted like Chinese braised meat. Some had the ham plain and found it too salty though.

My favourite! Fried chicken with dirty rice and butter biscuits. Super satisfying as the chicken was real good, crispy and juice but you can't really taste the grease. 

Not to mention this hot sauce which is sweet, sour and spicy at the right balance. 

After dinner, I went back to the hotel to catch up with my long needed sleep, while the others continue to explore the night life of New Orleans.

And that was our last day in New Orleans, we departed for airport 3 am the next morning. A "little" incident happened at the airport. Our baggage almost couldn't get back to Malaysia! But I think I'll keep the story for some other time as this post is already getting too long. 

So, stay tuned for more updates as I am now fully back to working mode. Updates on my final year project would be coming up next!

Till next time, 

Dong

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